#but also…. could be a rebound headache??

[foxgloveinspace]

There’s something profoundly awful about googling screen induced migraines on your phone.

[inwiste]

Might’ve given myself a mild to excruciating headache by taking too much medication

[sacredbbl]

Love At First Gig

Josh Kiszka X Y/N

TW: oral, sexual intercourse, sub , Alcohol, Marijuana

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Love at First Gig

Chapter 1

Y/N POV

You watch the clock as it hits 4:30. Procrastinating the reports that you have to get done by Monday. Tapping your fingers to your desk you think about how the last month has been.

Moving to a new city is hard not to mention breaking up with your fiancé in the middle of the process. You always had a hard time with confrontation ; so when you found out that Derek had a whole other family that you didn’t know about.

You decided to start a whole new life . Leaving the engagement ring on the counter you moved all your possessions into your car and left. You were able to transfer to another branch of the company. You felt that Nashville would be different.

So within a week you drove all the way from Massachusetts to Nashville, Tennessee, found an apartment that was perfect for you and started your first week at a new branch.

Suddenly you heard a voice speak to you from the cubicle next to you. You didn’t need to look up to know it was Priyanka. She was the first person to speak to you when you started. Well one of the only people who are nice to you in this office.

“Hey Y/N , I know you are new to Nashville, Do you want to come with Kyle and I to a local bands gig tonight? They are really good!” She asks

Just as you were about to answer Kyle popped up from the other cubicle.

“Yeah the lead singer is wicked hot.” He chuckles.

You were super happy you met Kyle. He understood your sense of humor since he was also from Massachusetts.

“I mean it wouldn't hurt to have a rebound hookup, “ Priyanka suggested with a wink.

They knew what happened to get you to move here.Both Priyanka and Kyle had become your friends within the last week.

“I don’t know about a rebound but I could use a little fun!”

“Awesome, meet at my apartment at eight! Ill send you the address!” Priyanka whispered as your boss Charlie strolled past your cubicle. Suddenly, you were looking forward to tonight .

You looked at your monitor and noticed it was already five. You packed your belongings in your backpack and headed towards the busy street. As you walked into the warm Nashville breeze you put your headphones on and turned on your playlist.

You quickly made it to your apartment building; going up the elevator and walking into your apartment. You threw your backpack on the floor near the door and made your way to the bedroom making your way through the maze of boxes all around the floor. You stopped at the box labeled tops, you knew exactly which one you wanted to wear to the bar tonight.

You dug through the box until you found the black lacy corset top. You paired it with a pair of black boyfriend jeans and a belt. By the time you finish your makeup and hair it is already 7:30.

Shit I am going to be late you thought as you pulled up your phone and ordered an Uber. Taking a deep breath and a hit of your pen you walked down to the street to wait for your Uber.

Josh POV

You wake up with a pounding headache as your usual hangover kicks in.Going into the kitchen you find your old reliable, aspirin. You opened your aspirin bottle and took a few with a swig of tequila. Jake’s voice cut through the grogginess of your brain.

“Hair of the dog ,right brother?” He chuckled.

You would not say you were an alcoholic but it definitely helped you live with your choice of skipping college to make it big with your band.

Except you didn’t make it big you played the same three bars every week. You’d thought you'd have taken off by now but you were still struggling to make rent and eat.

Today was Friday, you would play a gig at Murphy's bar just like you have done a thousand times. Talk to the same thirty people , get drunk and do it all over again on Saturday. You looked at your apartment and wondered how you got to this point in your life.

You shared a tiny one room apartment with the three other members of the band. You and Jake slept in one room , Danny slept in the huge walk in closet and Sammy slept on an old mattress in the kitchen. It wasn’t much but it was better than being on the street.

Finally arriving to the show, you greeted the usuals - the men who sat in the corner, the women who sat by the windows, the teenagers who had managed to make their way in with a fake ID.

You watched Jake set up his guitar, tuning it as he always did. It was going to be another long night.

As the lights dimmed slightly, you began, the same routine as always. You drew your eyes through the crowd, playing the same old songs you always did. By now, the regulars had learned the words, singing along with you.

One day it’ll be a stadium, one day it’ll be people you don’t recognise, one day it’ll be people who come out just for you, and not to just have a drink.

You watched your brothers as they played, engrossed in the music. Perhaps they didn’t care as much as you did, maybe they weren’t as concerned with making it big. Regardless of the size of the venue, you still gave it your all, wrapping your fingers around the microphone as you made

your way across the stage.

It was then that you saw her.

Someone new. A whole group of new people.

It instilled a new motivation in you, these were people that you knew you could draw in, people that you could have coming back for more.

And so, you found yourself giving it everything that you had, watching them intently.

“She is a lady, comes from all around

So many places, but she’s homeward bound.

And now she walks kinda funny

I think she knows

Day by day by day

Our love grows

She’s a lantern in the night

She’s out of sight”

You seemed to catch her attention with that one, with the group making their way to table not far from the stage.

As they ordered their drinks, you noticed her looking up at you, her eyes falling downward when you met her gaze. You couldn’t help the gentle smirk that crossed your lips - Gotcha.

As the group drank, you found her stealing glances at you, a soft blush covering her cheeks.

Y/N POV

You couldn’t stop yourself from looking at him as he sang - there was something about the way that he moved, something about the passion that was dripping from his lips.

You could easily tell that he was in love with his job - seemingly having the best time of his life. You found yourself standing as he sang, your drink in hand.

You made your way towards the stage, swaying before him, feeling the bass vibrating under your feet. You could feel your friend’s eyes on the back of your head, but you didn’t care - all that you could feel was the music. You were the only one stood - the only one who was dancing.

As he sang, he caught your eye once more, making his way towards the front of the stage, mimicking you. You hadn’t noticed him leaning down towards you, his head just above yours, his eyes studying your face.

“As the days pass by my mind

Are the wrong, the right, you are my sunshine

And as the night begins to die

We are the morning birds that sing against the sky”

The grin that spread across your lips was indescribable. You decided at that moment that you absolutely had to have him - regardless of what you would have to do, he would be yours. He seemed to catch your drift, passing you a small scrap of paper -

“Meet me backstage.”

You didn’t need much convincing, sending your friends a quick nod, before moving towards the small room in the back. It was quiet in there - a few instruments strewn around, some solo-cups filled with unrecognisable liquids.

You found yourself sitting down onto the couch as you waited for him, crossing your legs. You raised your cup to your lips, allowing the liquid to fill your mouth. As the crowd clapped, you became nervous - What would you say to him? Good job? You could tell that he knew he was good - he didn’t need the extra reassurance.

Before you could decide on what move you’d make, the door opened. The youngest of the group was first, gently placing his bass down onto the ground, leaning it against the wall.

He found your eyes, furrowing his eyebrows at you.

“Who the fuck are you? What’re you doing here?”

You weren’t too sure what to say, simply looking up at him. Stuttering over your words, you were glad when somebody else began to speak. The drummer, it seemed.

“Sam, don't be so rude. You can’t tell me that you didn’t see Josh making eyes at her literally all night long - you know damn well why she’s here” he laughed, elbowing the bassist in the ribs. The younger huffed, making his way through the door. Taking just a moment to catch your breath, another walked in - his hands running through his hair.

“I assume you’re here for my brother.” he hummed, his eyes barely visible over the sunglasses that adorned his face. You simply nodded, before he spoke again.

“Jake. Nice to meet you.” You nodded towards him, gushing about how much you had loved the set. A soft smile crossed his face, clearly appreciative that somebody new was finally listening.

Josh POV

It wasn’t normal for you to be the last one backstage. But knowing she was going to be there made you nervous. Sure you had talked to many girls before but this one seemed different than others.

You found yourself wanting to know everything about her. As you made your way backstage you grabbed a drink for yourself and chugged it trying to make yourself feel confident.

Finally you swallowed your nerves and opened the door . You found her sitting on the couch talking to Jake. They seemed to get along but as soon as Jake saw you he excused himself to the bar for his nightcap.

This would be the first night that you would not get absolutely trashed and you didn’t care. You break the silence in the room.

“Hey gorgeous, I’m Josh, I-”

She cuts you off.

“Josh I know who you are,you introduced yourself like five times throughout your set.” She chuckled

You run your fingers through your hair. You’ve realized you have gotten a funny one.

“ Well, how did you like the show?” You asked, trying to change the subject.

“ I loved it, you are a genius like a lyrical genius. I’m surprised you aren’t touring all over the place!” You could tell she meant what she said her eyes lit up as she spoke to you. The conversation felt natural. You sat next to her on the couch and talked for hours, never getting sick of each other. She was special. All of a sudden you felt your phone vibrate. So you quickly excused yourself to answer the messages.

2 new messages in the band chat

Jake: Hey dick where are you?

Danny: Dude we are leaving, are you coming?

You quickly type your answer not wanting to leave her alone.

You: No; I have to talk to the manager about our pay. Leave without me. I will let you know when I’m on my way home.

Sam: Dude you can’t seriously think we believe you.

Danny: You fucker, you can’t use our trick and then lie to us. You are gonna fuck her backstage.

You could tell they were giggling together as they messaged you. You knew this was their go to. Invite girls backstage , then hit it and quit it. But you didn’t want to quit her.

Sam: Dude are you going to ejaculate and evacuate?

Danny: Pump and Dump?!

You shut off your phone not wanting to engage in this conversation anymore and go back to the couch.

Sitting next to her you could not wait any longer and found yourself leaning in for a kiss. You were surprised when her lips crashed into yours with a kind of ferocity that starving animals had.You wanted this to happen.

You wanted her to take what was hers. You wanted her to conquer you. To label you as hers ; In fact that was all you could think of for the last hour . Her.

Y/N POV

You were glad when he finally made a move - having been staring at his lips for the entire night, just waiting for the go ahead.

It was as if he were oxygen, and you hadn’t been breathing all night. Quickly leaning over him, his back was pressed against the leather of the couch, a sense of desperation in his eyes. It was easy to find his soft skin with your lips, getting to work on marking him up.

Deep, purple bruises began to grow on his skin, a soft whine leaving his lips as you worked on him. His hands were firmly placed on your hips, his fingertips pushing bruises into them. Your hand began to wander, one finding its way to his hair, and the other to his groin.

You palmed him slowly, his hips bucking up to meet your touch.

“Please.. Please” he begged, doing his absolute best to not squirm under you.

“Please what?” you teased, your teeth grazing against his skin, causing his hair to stand on edge.

“Please touch me.” he replied, his voice low.

You did as you were commanded, not wanting to leave him waiting for any longer. Your fingertips made quick work of unbuckling his belt, sliding into his pants. You took him into your hand, stroking him slowly.

You couldn’t believe the noises that left his lips - such filth for such a pretty boy. He was so desperate, his body pushing up into your hand, begging for more. You complied with his wishes, hooking a finger around your panties and pulling them to the side.

You were soaking already, slowly sitting onto him. His head fell back, as you moved slowly, teasing him. His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, as he finally caught his breath, pushing his hips up further.

A low moan erupted from your throat, which only seemed to make him more desperate - clearly eager to please. He was so good for you, doing exactly as he was told to do every time that you moved.

He was addicting - every noise that fell from his lips was beautiful, a symphony of begs, and moans. You couldn’t help yourself, your hand finding his hair once again, tangling the tight curls around your fingers.

His eyes widened slightly, finding yours. You simply smirked at him, before tightening your grip, grazing your nails across his scalp.

“I…I’m gonna-” he began, before you cut him off, placing your lips onto his once more. “Wait. Wait for me” you hummed, kissing his jawline, with him nodding quickly, wanting nothing more than to make you happy. You loved how receptive he was, how willing he was to behave. You had him wrapped around your little finger already.

As you could feel yourself reaching your peak, you leaned down to him, whispering soft praise. His eyebrows furrowed, his head falling back once more.

“Come on, baby, cum for me” you whispered, your mouth barely touching his ear.

And so, he did, his body almost shaking, joining you in riding it out. You pulled yourself up once you were done, pulling him up onto your chest, switching the previous position. As he rested his head in the crook of your neck, he sighed softly, his eyes falling closed. You stayed there for a few moments until you realized what time it was.

“Shit I gotta go!” You say in a hurry, grabbing you things, and making your way out into the bar.

Josh POV

As you catch your breath, you wondered why she had left so quickly. You buckled your belt, and got your things together. You didn’t have much, but everything you had was sentimental to you. Making your way out into the bar you were hit with the bustle of the crowd. Music was blasting as you made your way to the door. Rich, the bar manager, pulled you aside.

“Hey kid, there was a guy who wanted to speak with you tonight. He’s from some record label. Don’t get too excited.. but he’s coming down tomorrow to listen to you guys again. You better put on a good show; in other words, try not to be absolutely shitfaced on stage tomorrow.”

You nod your head. “Absolutely Rich; see yah tomorrow!”

You tried to act normal on your walk home. A record label agent wanted to hear you and your brothers play. This was what you had been waiting for. This may be your big break. You had had multiple labels turn you down before but this one seemed different.

You felt different. You couldn’t help thinking about Y/N . Why was she of all people on your mind? You were clearly just a hook-up to her. As you made your way into the apartment, Jake, Danny, and Sammy were sitting in the living room, drinking a beer and watching a movie. Sammy noticed you first.

“Aye, look, it's the man of the hour!”

“How was your first time hooking up with a groupie?” Danny chuckled

“Was it everything you ever wanted and more!” Jake added, sarcastically.

You knew they’d do this. You weren’t usually the one to have random hook ups. You caught feelings too quickly. Your brothers, on the other hand, they had fucked just about the entire city of Nashville between the three of them.

“Well she isn’t a groupie; it was her first time seeing us!” You shot back. The boys laughed at you trying to defend Y/N.

You quickly changed the subject.

“Rich caught me on my way out, said there was a record label agent who liked our sound and is coming back tomorrow to hear more of us! So I suggest you put down those beers. We really have to be on our A game tomorrow.”

A wave of silence overtook the room until Sammy spoke up.

“Not to be an asshole, Josh, but how do we know this guy will be different? I mean, we’ve had at least a dozen agents listen to us and not one has signed us. Do you think this time will be any different?”

“Sammy, maybe this’ll be our chance! Why are you all so negative?” You responded.

“Josh no offense but we are just being realistic . You know, not getting our hopes up to be let down like all the other times before.” Danny responds .

You knew you had been let down before but you could just feel that tomorrow would be different.

You gave up on trying to get the boys to be positive, and made your way into your bedroom. Laying down on your bed you stared at the ceiling, thinking about how you could make it big someday, and, of course, about her.

Why was your mind so fixed on her? You knew it would be a one night stand and you’d probably never see her again. But you couldn’t stop thinking about her. You wanted her again. You drifted asleep thinking about your future and what happened backstage tonight. Your time had finally come.The world was going to know the name Josh Kiszka sooner, rather than later.

Y/N POV

You barrelled out into the bar and practically ran towards Priyanka and Kyle.

“Where the fuck were you?” Priyanka asked

As you pondered how to answer, Kyle interrupted your thinking.

“Oh My FUCKING God! “ He said shocked

“You Fucked him! You fucked Josh! Oh My GOd Y/N!” He continued to yell at the top of his lungs.

You felt yourself blush as you tried to quiet him down.He pushed a drink towards you and sat on the barstool.

“Well you have to tell me everything. Josh doesn’t fuck just anyone he’s not a man whore like his brothers.” He sat waiting for your attention.

“I didn’t say I fucked him” you responded trying not to blush out if embarrassment.

“Oh you totally did, I can tell! You look well… happier.” He responded.

“Kyle let it go! She doesn’t have to tell you if she doesn’t want to?” Priyanka tried to make him back off, but it was no use. One thing you knew about Kyle was that if there was gossip, he would hear about it. You chuckled.

“Okay I’ll tell you, but we have to get out of here. How about pizza?” As your suggestion speaks to the stomachs of your friends. You three finished your drinks and walked over to the late night pizza shop next door. While eating the greasy pizza. you found yourself telling your friends all about your escapade backstage.

How much you liked him, and his….. performance. But you wondered if you would ever see him again. Once you finish your pizza you stumbled into an Uber and into your apartment. Tripping over unpacked boxes, you made your way towards your bed.

You collapsed into your bed, and stared at the ceiling thinking about josh and how tonight changed your life. You wanted to see him again but you knew you were just a hookup. He was an up and coming rockstar he probably fucked alot of other girls . You knew you meant nothing to him so you decided to not make it awkward and hide your feelings.

As you fell asleep you promised yourself that he was nothing to you and it was just a hookup. It was just the alcohol talking, he was just a guy, and it was just one night.

Josh POV

As you woke, you basically jumped out of bed. Excited for the day to come, you woke up earlier than usual.

You decided to check the clock: 9:30. You couldn’t remember the last time you woke up this early. You left your room to realize no one else was awake. You decided you were hungry, and so, you made your way to the local bagel shop and joined the line that was almost out the door.

As you looked at the menu you noticed someone familiar smiling at the barista who was giving them their caffeinated drink. Then it hit you.

SHIT. It was Y/N.

Do you go say hello? Do you ignore her? What do you do?

The extrovert in you decided you needed to go say hello. I mean you had your dick inside her not even twenty four hours ago the least you could do is say hello.

So, you grab your bagel and coffee and make your way to where she was sitting. She was sitting alone. Working on her laptop, she sat silently with her headphones on and she was oblivious to what was happening around her.

You reached out and tapped her on her shoulder. She jumped a little with your touch and turned around.

“Hey Y/N! How’s your morning?” You greeted her with a smile, quickly noticing that she didn’t look happy to see you.

“Oh. Hey Josh. I’m busy right now, can we talk later?” She responded, turning back to her computer.

“Uh… sure” you reply hesitantly

You pulled a pen from your bag, and scribbled a note on your receipt, before sliding it to her. She half smiled at you and shoved it in her pocket.

You couldn’t help but feel a little defeated. Why was she acting like this? Did last night mean nothing to her? In fairness, maybe it shouldn’t have meant anything to you either.

You exited the bagel shop into the busy streets of Nashville, trying to hide the tear that ran down your cheek. You made your way back to the apartment, now feeling a lot less optimistic than you were an hour ago.

By the time you made it home, the boys were all awake. You gave your bagel to Danny and Sam to split, due to having lost your appetite. Taking a single glance at your face, Jake could tell that something had upset you. Being twins, and as close as you were, you could basically communicate without talking. He broke the silence.

“Shit,it's the girl isn’t it?”

You nod your head.

“I warned you not to invite her backstage! You know you catch feelings too easily!”

You quietly responded, looking down towards the floor.

“I just thought that it would be different this time, I don’t know. ”

He sat you down, and gently placed a hand onto your shoulder.

“Dude, all girls who sleep with someone in a band are mostly girls who only do one night stands. Either keep away from girls at our gigs or start not catching feelings.”

[pray4saint]

crush culture

masterlist & descrip. pg-13. 13+. fem!reader. swearing. toxic, manipulative, near abusive ex mention. use of 'y/n'. lyrics are out of order. crush denial. 1.5k words. in reponse to @ghostworrjed 's ask bc i accidentally wrote it wrong & posted it lmao.

a/n. STOP IT ILY. first fic for this event is a conan gray song n im living for it | the last paragraph was rushed bc the song was starting to give me a headache

crush culture by conan gray | this is apart of my 500 follower event!

”i'm done! okay, i'm done! are you fucking happy now?!” you'd screamed, reaching for your keys off the dresser. your boyfriend stared up at you from the couch, a dark look in his eye that made your hands tremble in just the slightest. behind you, you'd already started to turn the door handle and pull it, opening the door, still facing him. ”yeah, i am. you know why?” you didn't want to say anything, you wanted to leave. but as if his words were a drug, you responded, ”why?” breathless, your eyes giving way to your fear. the man sat far from you smiled, the same smile that always told you things weren't going to end well. ”because you'll come back. because we love each other.” despite how he meant it sound, you could still feel the venom spat from his mouth. you could feel it tingle against your skin, you could feel it in the air as you slammed the door shut, anger and sadness fighting to stay behind your eyes, you could feel it on the hoodie you were wearing that was actually his.

you'd gone to stay with your cousin that night. she doubled as one of your best friends and stayed up with you the entire night. she wasn't amazing at providing comfort, but she let your cry it out on her couch, she let you sleep in her guest bedroom, she took the next morning off work to stay with you. she also convinced you, along with the ill intent behind your boyfriend's words, not to go back to him.

”y/n, my dearest cousin and best friend in the entire world, can i offer you a piece of advice?” she'd asked, pulling english muffins from the toaster onto her plate. for the first time since you'd sat down to eat, you looked up from your plate. ”yeah, go ahead.”

”why don't you try.. not dating, just for a few months?” you knew to take everything your cousin said with a grain of salt, but maybe she was onto something. every time you'd gotten out of a major relationship, there was a cycle that you never strayed from, and that was; breakup, then have a rebound, then go on two dates with different people, and then dive into another long-term relationship. ”uh, yeah, i'll give it a try.” it came out more sarcastic than you meant it, but by the smile you got from her, you assumed she could tell.

by the time you'd left her house that day and were on your way back to your own place, you'd decided to take the time off from dating.

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yes, it had been a few months since your breakup with your ex. yes, your ex was still texting you, every other goddamned day.

after news of your breakup had travelled throughout your friend group and your cousin's friend group, it was a mutual friend – one neither of you had heard from in a long time – who reached out. sapnap. and recently, you'd been spending more time than you would've liked to admit with him. it slowly went from one coffee out to cheer you up a few weeks after the breakup, which mind you, took a couple of cancellations to get set up, to you texting him whenever you wanted to go out and get away from everything. the next month you were telling him what your ex would say in the texts he'd send you.

in your mind, there were no sirens, no flags raised at how much time you'd spent talking to sapnap. even when he started coming over to your place or you started going over to his place, you didn't think anything of it, because at least you had him to distract you.

i'm not falling for you, 'cause this baby is love-proof.

yes, you'd been spending a lot of time with your friend sapnap. yes, he'd started to become apart of your daily routine to talk to. yes, your cousin had raised concerns over your weekly dinner together. no, you didn't feel anything for him. you didn't feel much of anything for anyone. but when you were with him, much like when you were with your cousin or your other friends, you were smiling and laughing. you were happy.

”do you want me to order something in tonight?” sapnap asked from your couch, head hung over the back to look at you in your kitchen. lifting your head up from your fridge for the fifth time in the hour with a sigh, your head turns to him. ”yeah. can we do ubereats this time? the last time i doordashed, they forgot my sauce.” you pushed the door shut lazily, taking steps back toward the living room as he pulled his head back over the edge and opened the ubereats app on his phone. ”whatever you want.” he offhandedly smiled at you and you've could've sworn your heart stopped for a split second.

oh. shit.

the whole rest of that day you went on as if you weren't on high alert. you couldn't have a crush, not yet, because your six months weren't quite up yet. by the time it was time for him to go, you were internally panicking. just don't see him for a week, that'll fix it, that's what you told yourself.

and initially, it did work. you told sapnap you were sick, and your cousin brought your groceries over that week and all was well in the world. and when you did hang out with him next? there was no heart stopping of any kind, and so you resumed your hanging out with him how you had been for months.

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”what do you think of this?” you'd asked him over facetime, stepping back from the camera to show off the new hoodie and jeans you'd bought that you thought paired really well together. ”i like it, but i think it would look better on my floor.” your heart stopped, but not in the same way as before. this time it was from how outrageous this sounded to you.

”excuse me?” you asked, picking up the phone to bring it up really close to your face. ”you heard me.” he replied simply. nonchalantly.

oh no, don't look in their eyes, 'cause that's how they get you, kiss you then forget you

your cousin stared at you, wide-eyed, jaw slack at your story. ”listen, y/n–” you cut her off. ”i know what you're gonna say, and no, i don't have a crush on him. he's just messing with me, obviously. anyways, i can't wait to be done with these months of being crush-free.”

after giving you a minute to catch your breath, your cousin speaks again. ”so what i was gonna ask, y/n is, are you fighting it? you know, having a crush?” she asked, pulling her mug of tea back up to her lips. she took a long sip in while you mulled over her words. ”no, i don't think so.” your words were flat out simple, but the way your fingertips tapped into your palm gave away your lie. ”uh huh, sure. let me know how this whole thing with sap goes.” she responds, taking another sip from her mug.

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ok, maybe your cousin was right. maybe you were fighting having a crush. maybe you were fighting having a crush on sapnap.

crush culture makes me wanna spill my guts out, spill my guts out, spill my guts out

every time you went out on drives later into the night, every time you called him at midnight and he picked up, every time he texted you about something interesting that'd happened to him throughout his day, every time he flirted with you, you felt heart your stop. you also felt it flip and spin and your stomach twirl and flutter as if butterflies were locked inside.

still, you didn't do anything about it, because you couldn't. you made a promise to yourself, and you wanted to see it through.

what you didn't know, was that sapnap was feeling very similarly. he'd started flirting with you moments before he realises he had a crush on you. but he couldn't do anything about it, because you told him a week later about your deal with yourself, and he knew how badly you wanted to get through it. so, of course, he wanted that for you too.

in the mean time, he flirted but would stop himself short of anything truly meaningful and he would avoid going for the hugs he oh so badly wanted, and he would take advantage of every minute he had with you. oh, what a shame it was to feel so much, and repress it for your sake and for the sake of the person you felt so much for.

.⋆｡⋆˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆.⋆｡⋆˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆. ︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶ .⋆｡⋆˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆.⋆｡⋆˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆.

to say he was happy when you'd called him at 12:01am one night to tell him that you were officially through your six months was an understatement. to say he was ecstatic when you told him how you felt about him moments afterwards was an understatement.

pray4saint© do not copy, translate or repost my work without my express permission.

[kidgetrash]

Kidge Drunk Confessions - Keith to Pidge - Part 2

Character:  Keith Kogane, Pidge Gunderson/Katie Holt

Pairings:  Keith/Pidge

Warnings!:  Pidge is in denial!

Summary: Follow up to part one! find it here!

A/N: I managed to get this done today! Huzzah!

The lights in Pidge’s room rose some time later than the sun, set to fit in with her sleep cycle of late to bed, late to rise, and Pidge stirred, remembering last night as she saw the black clothed chest rising and falling before her eyes.  They hadn’t moved in the night, or if they had they had migrated back to this position, and she knew now it was only a matter of time before reality burst this bubble.  Until then she would just appreciate the position she found herself in.  Unfortunately, she mused as Keith’s hand flexed on her arm, that time was running out faster than she expected.

‘Hey, Pidge?’  Keith asked, his voice rough and gravelly after a night of drinking.

‘Uh huh?’  She asked hesitantly.

‘It’s morning.’

‘It is.’  She sighed.

‘And I still love you.’

‘You’re still drunk.’  She stated.  Her mind had already concocted a reply for every possibility that he may say when he woke, from I knew you were joking, to I don’t know what you’re talking about.  This had been on her mental list somewhere near the bottom.

‘This headache begs to differ.’  He screwed up his eyes.  ‘Seriously, lower the lights.’

‘You still smell like fermented Yelmore crap, which also begs to differ.’  She commented, pushing herself to sit up and planning to get out of the bed, but his arms prevented her.  She turned back to look at him and sighed.  ‘Go back to your room, take a shower, clean your teeth, please, and sleep the rest off.  I have things to do in the lab.’

‘It’s not more important than this.’

‘I promise you, cleaning your teeth is the priority right now.’

He finally get her go and she took her chance to get out of bed as Keith breathed into his palm, his eyes almost watering at the rebounded stench.  ‘Okay, I’ll go back to my room, shower and clean my teeth, twice, then I’m coming to find you in the lab.’

‘Good, I can run some blood work and show you how drunk you still are.’  She glanced back at him as she threw on her sweater.  She had showered the night before so once he left she could get straight to work and hopefully put last night behind her.

He flinched as he swung his legs out of the bed and looked around, finding his jeans on the floor with his boots and jacket.  He remembered he confessed.  He remembered he kissed her, but he took most of his clothes off?  That was normally what he did to sleep, but couldn’t he have some restraint in her room?  ‘You’ve got to believe me, Pidge, I’m serious.’

‘Okay.’  She got up after pulling on her boots.  ‘Say you’re in love with me.  Now what?’

‘I am in love with you.’  He approached her slowly until they were standing toe to toe, her head tilting back to look up at him.  ‘And last night you told me you love me too.’

Her cheeks flushed, proving he had remembered right, but the determination in her eyes told him she was going to deny it.  ‘I love all the team, in my own way.’  She took two steps back.

‘And if Lance had come banging on your door last night?  Or Hunk?’  He followed her, wanting her to understand that this wasn’t a bad thing.  They felt the same for one another, this had potential, he hoped, and she was still assuming it was some drunken lie.

She shook her head as her back bumped into the door.  ‘I didn’t exactly ask you in.’

‘But you also didn’t kick me out.  You said you were going to get Shiro, but instead you kissed me back.’

‘Shower.  Brush your teeth.  Sleep.’  She stated firmly, her hand groping around for the door release even though he didn’t advance any further.

‘I’m trying to make a point here.’

‘Make it once you’re clean and sober!’  She slapped the door release and spun, rushing out of the door and away down the hallway, almost colliding with Lance on the way.

‘Hey, easy, Pidge!  You nearly…OH SHIT!  KEITH AND PIDGE?!’

Keith facepalmed, knowing how bad it must look, standing in just his t-shirt and underwear in her room, but it was obvious it was going to take a little more convincing before she came around.

I know, I know. Part 3?

[thethingything]

okay so either there's a moth in our room that's somehow managed to completely avoid being seen other than in my peripheral vision, or this is the kind of hallucination our brain has decided to start having now instead of the non-existent spiders I'm used to hallucinating instead.

I get the feeling it probably is a hallucination which could mean:

we're gonna get an especially bad migraine

it's stress-induced but it'll continue being just hallucinations without us getting the other psychosis symptoms we find harder to deal with

it's stress-induced and I'm about to be in for a wild ride with psychosis symptoms

I need to sleep maybe

and I do not know which one it is but I guess we'll find out. I do have a headache that I've had almost constantly for... I have no idea how long, and I think it's because taking certain pain meds more than like 3 times a week gives us rebound headaches, so it might be to do with that.

I do also have some stuff going on in the background where the line between irrational fear and delusion gets very blurred, which has been going on for over a month, and our psychosis has been pretty bad in general this year (some of our delusions are triggered by physical health stuff so you can imagine how that's going for us) so like it could be that our brain's just decided to do weird shit again.

I'm mostly just not sure what to make of having what seems to be a new hallucination, or at least our brain interpreting the stuff it's seeing differently I guess?

we're used to hallucinations that are just dots that fly across our vision, and even the spiders were mostly just dots/blobs in our peripheral vision that our brain interpreted as spiders, whereas this is like, a shape that moves a specific way and appears to have fluttering wings and is just a lot more convincing, but as I've been typing this I got a couple of the hallucinations we're more used to so I'm pretty sure it is a hallucination and not like, a real creature flying around

[multifandumbmeg]

Random update per my fics:

Sorry I haven't updated in the last few days. I usually try to write some every day, but I took a day off to plan Golden Glint and then finished the mini fic (Reckoning of Mike Carrera) I started before it because that's what I wanted to write and I wanted to finish it.

On the topic of all my in-progress fics, my writing just isn't consistent right now. I mentioned a while ago that I'm going through AO3 author's curse and would eventually expand on that, so since I'm extremely frustrated and paralyzed from being productive today I'll do that now.

Starting from winter/late fall of 2022 I got sick and basically never got better. I was having illness after illness that meds weren't solving, and my headaches just got more and more frequent until they were every day for at least three months. By the time I came home from Korea, I was having full-blown debilitating migraines every day and attacks where I would almost pass out and couldn't breathe. It took me a couple months but I got on insurance, started a new job, and managed to convince my parents to let me focus on getting my health together this year.

It's been extremely difficult and frustrating because US healthcare, but I found out I do not in fact have ANY allergies despite doctors telling me I do, literally putting me on allergy shots for a year, and telling me that was the cause of migraines, inability to breathe, and constant illness, none of which were true. I had to prove this to them by fighting to see an actual allergist and getting re-tested which costs me hundreds of dollars out of pocket, but at least the allergist was a good dude who wrote a SCATHING letter to my primary care demanding I be sent to the proper specialists for my symptoms. Several blood tests and medications later, we have whammy number two:

The hypoglycemia I was diagnosed with as a teenager was not in fact random. Instead, I have hyperthyroidism caused by Graves Disease. Except I ALSO have Hashimoto's Disease, because I am just so special like that. Basically, rather than allergies like I was always told, I have been getting every single sickness that rolled by for the past several decades and because I was so used to being sick and so criminally gaslit about it, I didn't even know I was ill and just kept going. Thyroid also has tumors on it. I may also have other autoimmune disorders, or thyroid cancer, but I won't know until I finally see an endocrinologist an hour away later this month.

Though my daily migraines stopped last summer, I still get frequent headaches and now extremely bad ones (or migraines) every time it rains. Generally, there seems to be some kind of inflammation issue where my body over-reacts to literally everything by swelling up and causing more problems.

Possibly tied to that, I was in pain every single day at work. Considering my age, there is no normal reason I should be crippled by joint pain but that is yet to be solved. I now only work two days a week, which has helped significantly, but I am still consistently in a ton of pain two days a week, sometimes three as a rebound.

In January, before I had gotten any diagnoses, my parents gave me an ultimatum that they were kicking me out in May. I had to beg them to go part-time because I simply could not keep up with job applications while I was so constantly tired and pain. After sobbing for two straight days about the inevitability of becoming homeless because I can't afford to or logistically live on my own, my mom convinced my dad to let me go part time on the condition that I continue to pay the same rent Ive been paying to live in one of their empty spare rooms.

In February, I went in for the first appointment toward getting an Autism screening. The therapist suggested I get an ADHD test and recommended me for the official autism screening, saying I have a solid case for suspecting. After a little computer game and another talking appointment, slightly to my own surprise (especially because of how easy it was) I was clinically diagnosed with ADHD. I recently started meds for that and it has made basic tasks and job applications infinitely easier to the extent it's insane, plus my final Autism screening is next week and based on my results every step of the process so far diagnosis seems likely.

All that said, the job search process has been soul-destroyingly frustrating. I have a masters degree in a specialized field, backed up by a Bachelor's in a relevant field, years of study abroad and work abroad (which is relevant to my career path) and a track record of excellent academic achievement. I also speak French and Korean near-fluently and am conversational in Romanian and Russian, as well as knowing a fair few phrases in a number of other languages. Every job I've had has stressed me out to the point of quitting by around a year (hello Autism), but also none were related to what I studied at all, highly customer service oriented, and still every one would tell you I was one of the best employees they ever had and begged me to stay. Even with this track record, after literally HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of applications (which in my field almost always require a cover letter, often questionnaires and lengthy short answers, or even writing samples in addition) I have had ONE interview in four years. ONE. And I was so heinously underqualified for that hail-Mary I'm 99% certain they only interviewed me to meet a quota. As you can imagine, for someone with highly probable AuDHD, doing the same thing over and over for 4 years with a 100% failure rate is enough to make me want to dive into a lake with a pile of bricks chained to my back.

I'm still months out from seeing a neurologist about my headaches and general constant pain, I don't have a plan of action for my buck-wild medical anomaly thyroid, and I don't know if my parents are kicking me out next month. They haven't brought it up so maybe with my recent headway on the Peace Corps application (was told I stand a very good chance, but that's another contract job overseas, further pushing back my ability to find a stable, long term career job) and slew of diagnoses and medications, my dad is cooling off a bit. I don't know.

All that to say my body is crumbling out from under me, my job is stressful, and despite being extremely qualified and putting in so much effort, I have zero long-term life prospects. Sometimes, that results in me diving whole-hog into writing for fun and as an outlet, other times I'm too tired or need to bury myself in mindless content consumption or days of spending every spare moment staring at my ceiling in silence until I maybe fall asleep. Did I also mention the crippling lifelong insomnia which my ADHD meds (along with rapid weight loss I'm desperately trying to curb because I'm already borderline underweight due to my thyroid) are exacerbating?

Anywyay. Point is I'm very tired and stressed so my writing is going to be much less consistent than in the past. Hope you understand. Also just an update for my online friends. TMI but I needed to rant and put it out there for those wondering to lower expectations.

[itshomobirb]

been on a new med and it's helping my pots symptoms. but also it's giving me headaches -- im not really a girlie who gets headaches unless it's caused by medication, and unfortunately taking otc pain medication for a headache gives me rebound headaches.

im trying to figure out (a) is it the medication itself & hence unavoidable for the unlucky who get the side effect? perhaps would a smaller dose be more fitting?

or (b) is it some sort of electrolyte imbalance?

the med works by basically swapping sodium for potassium in biological processes, which means my body will now hold onto salt better -> helps my pots symptoms. in order to work, i have to consume a lot of salt. but im already just past the limit of the amount of salt my dr is ok with me taking (~10g; im hovering around 2.6g per electrolyte packet i put in a liter of water x 4 liters of water a day = 10.4g).

do i need more salt? do i need more water, without electrolytes? do i need more potassium, since this med can cause potassium levels to drop?

yeah, this could all be solved by just getting a blood test but consider: my schedule is booked with upcoming appts and im still recovering from taking my son to the emergency vet 1.5 weeks ago. i dont wanna add even more to my plate.

[headpainmigraine]

Migraine isn't a Headache Part Four: but what if a headache is all I get?

I was reading through the notes on some other posts and realised that a lot of people are looking for answers re: what their headache could be.

Migraine is underdiagnosed and grossly misunderstood as 'headache' when it isn't a headache, but likewise, some people might dismiss their headache as migrane when they're dealing with a different beast entirely.

If you're bothered by persistent headaches, frequent (weekly/daily) headaches, but don't really experience the myriad of other symptoms that form a migraine, there are a host of differential diagnoses that should be investigated.

It might be worth taking some small measures first before going through the hassle of seeing a doctor. Headaches can be caused by:

Dehydration (I know 'have you had water' is a common thing to be asked when you say you've had a headache, but make sure that you are actually consuming enough fluids - dehydration can absolutely cause bastard headaches, and it's REALLY EASY to be dehydrated if you're busy working and don't look up to drink something)

Eye strain (It might be easier for you to see an optician/optomertrist than a doctor, plus if there ARE any issues, they're usually easier to sort out with glasses, a new prescription, or different types of lenses. Even if you have 20/20 vision, they can at least a) rule out eyestrain)

Hunger (Food is a touchy topic, so I'm not going to linger on it, but eating something small when you have a headache might help. Sometimes I don't feel hungry, but make myself eat a banana or a cracker or something, just to appease the beast)

Bad Sleep (Not enough sleep, too much sleep, poor quality sleep, sleep apnea, so many sleep things can cause headaches that it's a topic of it's own; you can help by practiscing good sleep hygeine, but a routine bedtime/waketime factoring in sufficient hours is really helpful with this)

Stress (This one isn't something you can easily fix at home, especially if your stress is, you know, the cost of living, working your job and every other thing life can throw at us, but noting that you get headaches when you experience stress can make you more aware of when you might need to pamper yourself a little, or to tell a doctor if you're seeking diagnosis)

Caffeine (the whole thing about 'caffeine addiction' is medically disputed, but you can definitely get headaches from stopping drinking caffeine, but also from drinking too much. A lot of people with migraine find relief when drinking caffeine, and it's included in a lot of painkillers, but if you suspect caffeine might be something to do with your headaches, maybe avoid those. It's easy to tell, you just need to stop caffeine for maybe a week or two and see if your headaches improve.)

I'm going to mention Medication Overuse/Rebound Headache here, because it can be eased without medical treatment, but there are all sorts of issues around that.

This apparently doesn't happen if you're taking painkillers for something other than headache, because why not make life harder for people with them. If you take the same painkillers for, eg, back pain, neck pain, arthritis, etc, you don't tend to get rebound headaches.

If you have headaches usually migraine or tension type) and are taking painkillers too frequently (more than 10 days per month) for too long (more than 3 months) you can develop headaches caused by taking too many painkillers.

Messed up, right?

I've had these headaches alongside migraine and they are EVIL. I can only describe them as seething.

Overuse of opioids and triptans are most likely to provoke rebound headache (yeah, the ones migraineurs take, can't catch a break)

Paracetamol and aspirin are the next culprits, with NSAIDs like ibupfrofen and naproxen having less likelihood, but still very much there.

Medication overuse headaches can be resolved by not taking pain medication.

That sounds simple, but in reality, living it, it's hell. For the first few days after you stop taking painkillers, the headaches are… spectactular. Intense, crunchy, sparkling pain, acid in your blood pain. Not to mention that you have no treatment for whatever you were taking painkillers to cope with in the first place.

Coming off everything for 2-3 weeks does seem to beat MOH, and the relief when they stop happening is as great as the pain is in those first few days, but you can always redevelop it if you go back to taking more painkillers.

So, what do you do to prevent medication overuse headache while not leaving yourself untreated for the headache you were taking the painkillers for?

Medical advice is to limit the usage of headache medications, no more than 2-3 days a week, or less than 10 days a month, and to avoid opioids and triptans as much as possible.

That doesn't really help if you're getting a headache every other day of the month. This is where preventative treatments are supposed to be utilised, to treat the headache instead of just dulling the pain. I don't have to tell anyone who's already a spoonie that trying to get this treatment is difficult, and that's assuming the preventative measures work for you.

But honestly, personally, I'd rather have a migraine than medication overuse headaches, seriously.

There are so many different types of headache, and other illnesses where headache is a symptom and not the illness itself, that I can't list them all.

You shouldn't diagnose headache disorders over the internet.

I'm not going to pretend that seeing a doctor isn't a financial/energetic/emotional/time scale difficulty for a lot of people, but a) headache can be a sign of something serious, b) even if it's not there may be "easy" treatments for it and c) there are treatments for headache that you can't buy over the counter.

It's one thing to go to a doctor and say you have XYZ symptoms, so you suspect you have headaches/migraines, but treating for, example, migraine when you have another type of headache is just going to waste your money and possibly harm you.

Other types of headaches can include:

Tension Headache - usually felt like a tight band around the head, not necessarily caused by tense muscles, but often triggered by stress, among other things; very commonly confused with migraine, they don't present with other symptoms of migraine like nausea, aura, etc; there's a LOT of information about tension headaches online, and is one of the most common causes of persistent or chronic headache complaints

Cluster Headache - also called 'suicide headache', the pain is so bad that sufferers often can't sit still, rocking, pacing or banging their head into a wall. this is a 'something in one side of my face pulling my cheek away from the skull' pain, that also usually presents with a red/watering eye, sinus disruption on that side, drooping eyelid. onset is fast, with headache lasting 15 minutes to 3 hours and occuring 1-8 times a day. they usually appear in bouts, followed by remission and then reappearance.

Thunderclap headache - sudden onset, reaches intensity in less than a minute, extremely severe pain; if you have one of these for the first time, you should seek immediate medical attention; they can be benign, but they can be a sign of brain injury, stroke, blood vessel tears/ruptures/bloackages

As well as:

hemicrania continua

ice pick headache

sinus headache/other sinus disorders (not a headache disorder in and of itself)

hormone/menstrual headache

hypertension headache

post-traumatic headache

chiari malformations (not a headache disorder, rather where the brain starts to slip into the spinal canal; headache can be a symptom for some people; it's not often talked about, so I thought I'd put it here)

This isn't everything, they all have different diagnosis paths, different symptoms that come along with them, different experiences between people who have them.

Headache is a massive area of differential diagnoses, it's always worth seeing a doctor for diagnosis and proper treatment, if you can.

Back to Migraines in the next part

[inscrutable-shadow]

Mediwhump May Day 3 - Seizure

@mediwhumpmay

This is canon-compatible with Five Card Draw and therefore does not have any AU markers. The 'Suit Booster' drug is more explained in unposted sections of that manuscript but basically, it's a performance enhancer that the Suits can take when they've pushed their bodies as far as they can and still need more, it removes the pain and fatigue temporarily and kickstarts their regeneration factor.. Jack helps the Doc with testing because he forgives easily and the promise of food is enough to get him to at least consider pretty much anything.

“So, Doc, what are we testing today?” Jack’s feet barely brushed the floor as he kicked them gently. They should really get the Doc some new equipment in here; a guy’s feet were definitely not supposed to reach the floor when he was sitting on an exam table, and he wasn’t even the tallest person in the Deck.

The Doctor was in a good mood, as was typical on a testing day, their smile real and their glasses on, which meant they were actually trying to be able to see him. “This is another drug trial. The formulation is not overly different from the previous test, so I will mainly be looking at the efficacy of the-“

Jack yawned loudly. “I’ll be honest with you, Doc, I just got off of a triple, so if we could skip the long-winded explanations, I’d really appreciate it.” He leaned back heavily on the reclined table, half-wishing he could go to sleep right there. Why did they have to call for him now, of all times?

The Doctor, of course, had the answer to that question. “That is actually why I asked you here today. My hope is that this new iteration of the ‘Suit Booster’ drug, as you insist upon calling it, will activate more quickly, remain effective longer, and have less of a rebound effect. Your fatigue is vital to the experiment.”

Sure. Whatever. Jack couldn’t bring himself to sweat the details. The sooner he did what the Doc wanted, the sooner he could be in his bathtub and then his bed. “Cool. So I take it like a normal booster?”

“Yes!” They handed him a palm-sized capsule of dark purple gel. “Just rate the change in your fatigue level and the monitors will do the rest.”

“Aren’t these usually blue?” he asked before sucking down the liquid. The texture was like drinking yogurt, not unpleasant, but also not grape-flavoured like his brain was telling him it should be.

The Doctor shrugged. “Would you prefer another colour? The blue dye was added at the Queen of Diamonds’ request when I was developing the original formula. She thought the four of you would prefer it to dark yellow.”

Well, she’d been right. Jack couldn’t think of many things worse than sucking down a tube of viscous piss-coloured fluid when he was already at his limit. He’d take any colour but that. And any taste in his mouth other than the suddenly overpowering grape flavouring. “Mother’s veil, Doc, that grape stuff comes on strong. It’s giving me a headache.” the lights were too bright suddenly, and he shielded his eyes with his hand.

The Doctor’s brow furrowed, and they set a hand on his shoulder in concern. “Jack... I haven’t added grape flavouring to the formula. I have not added any flavouring. Are you sure you’re- where in the blazes are you going?”

Jack’s head had snapped up and he was already halfway to the door before the Doctor’s hold on his arm stopped him. “Something’s here. Something’s coming.” His instincts had been honed by fifty years of being the Jack of Clubs, and he never doubted them anymore. The feeling of unease usually wouldn’t be this strong or come on this quickly. He felt close to a panic attack and nothing had happened to cause one of those. He realised that his breathing had become erratic, was vaguely aware of the Doctor calling his name, and then a sensation like falling off of a cliff before darkness.

When he became aware again, the first thing he noticed was how badly his head hurt. If this was what a migraine felt like, he had much more sympathy for Queen now. It was the sort of headache that made him feel like removing his jaw might help more than it would hurt. The next thing he noticed was that he’d been put into the recovery position. That was nice of whoever had done that. Was he on the floor? He guessed he must be. It wasn’t as dusty as he would have expected. Did the Doc spend all of their time in here cleaning?

Oh! The Doc! they must be worried sick if he’d passed out. He forced his eyes open a bit further. There they were, sitting on the floor next to him, uncharacteristically attentive. “Wha’ ‘appened…” His voice sounded strange…

They sighed in relief. “Welcome back. How much do you remember?”

Jack swallowed thickly. His mouth was so dry. How long had he been out? “Not much. We were... testing something, right?”

“Mhm. You had a temporal focal followed by a generalised tonic-clonic seizure, and, rather impressive one too, I might add. Not one of the anticipated side effects. I apologise, I rarely make such a severe medical error…” Their expression was neutral, but he could tell that they were furious with themselves.

“Not your fault, Doc. My head hurts…”

“I will be the judge of that. And yes, that is a standard after effect. You must be exhausted. I would like to keep you overnight for observation, if you feel up to getting up off of the floor.”

Jack did not, in fact, feel up to that. He’d much rather go to sleep right here. The last thing he heard was the Doctor’s “Hell’s teeth...” of affectionate consternation. Taglist: @youareshauni @arieadil @i-eat-worlds

[incredible-snow-spider]

WHAM! A massive sound bubble featuring the sound effect appeared as the over sized novelty hammer collided with Snow-Spider, sending her flying into a nearby wall. As she hit the wall, she'd leave an outline of herself as the wall cracked around her before she was able to break free from it. Shaking her head, Snow quickly leapt back into the fight, ready to be done with this encounter.

Everytime she had a fight with The Animator it was nonstop slapstick jokes and other cartoony antics that Snow really didn't care for, but had to put up with this until the fight was over. Still, every fight always left her with a headache, regardless of if she took a blow to the head or not. The stupidly loud sound effects alone were enough to drive her up the wall, but the reality bending physics were also a pain to deal with.

Unfortunately for Snow-Spider, she was about to get a very hands on lesson in how The Animator could warp reality, or as the villain put it. "A crash course on hammers!" Jumping up into the air, she readied the hammer, and Snow went to slide under her to dodge the next blow. Unfortunately, Snow wasn't able to clear the impact zone and was hit full force as The Animator and her hammer dropped to the ground.

The first sound was a loud SPLAT as Snow-Spider was squished flat to the ground beneath the hammer. Luckily for her though, the impact stunned her enough to not hear the immediate joke that followed the blow. "Haha! Nice, just squished the bug~" Now the real weirdness could start though. After having been rendered a two dimensional disc from the hammer slam, Snow could feel herself vibrating slightly before popping back up, springing up and down with an accordion sound as she rebounded from the hit.

The problem that would present itself though, as Snow stumbled around trying to get her bearings, was a small counter appearing by her head as she went up and down. The counter seemed to be rapidly counting her current height which was shifting at an uncountable speed. She wouldn't be able to see but as it slowed to a stop, the counter would tick back and forth between 5' and 4'11". Snow-Spider would be none the wiser as the counter clicked slower and slower, creeping to a halt as the counter finally locked in at 4'11" leading The Animator to laugh for the rest of the fight, much to Snow's confusion.

[of-twilight-and-moonshadow]

Healing - Kenny x Emery x Hangman

Part of my Dark Angel of the Bullet Club series

Summary: The Elite rest backstage after Brandon and Nakazawa's match against BCC. Emery is beyond exhausted, physically and mentally, from the Sinister Angel taking over control of her. The peace is soon interrupted by Dark Order, though, and after Kenny makes the mistake of saying something that upsets her, Emery stands her ground before reaching out to an old friend.

Takes Place immediately following Sinister Debut.

Word Count: 2,748

Tag List: @summertimefun1982 @blxxckheart @katries @himbos-hotline

(If you want added to one or more of my tag lists, let me know. One for aew, wwe, njpw and Dark Angel)

(divider by)

Emery sat on the floor of the locker room on her knees, her head resting on Kenny’s lap as he gently ran his fingers through her hair. Her arms were limp at her sides, wrists wrapped up in a white bandage, and she had taken some aspirin to combat the headache she had just an hour before. Water droplets slowly dripped down onto her shirt and onto Kenny’s leg as he had changed into gym shorts after helping her wash her hair. The blue color had faded considerably, but there were still some remaining hints of it in her brown hair.

Nick sat to Kenny’s right side, followed by Brandon and then Matt. Brandon had also gotten checked out by the doctor, his open wounds that had bled were patched up, and all the dry blood had been washed off after a quick shower. Nak had taken a little longer with the doctor and had dismissed himself to take a shower just moments ago.

The group sat there in comfortable silence; the guys were all able to breathe a sigh of relief that there was no permanent damage done to Emery and that Brandon and Nak were relatively unscathed. The only tell-tale signs of what had occurred were the bandages covering the wounds around Emery’s wrists from the handcuffs and her sore body.

When she turned to the Dark Angel, it didn’t take as much out of Emery; she was always able to rebound fairly quickly and kept a certain amount of consciousness during it. Turning to Sinister Angel, on the other hand, it drained her completely, her mind losing all forms of consciousness. It took days, if not weeks, before she would have the energy to do anything.

Nick reached out and clapped Brandon on the shoulder as Matt said, “What a night.”

“Yeah,” Brandon nodded slowly, a slight smile on his face.

“You did good out there, man,” Nick told him as Kenny nodded in agreement.

“You and Nak both… you fought back…”

“Thanks, guys… I just wish…” Brandon said with a small frown as his gaze dropped to Emery’s form beside Kenny. They all understood what he was trying to say, but they didn’t blame him for anything that had transpired.

No. All the blame fell on Blackpool Combat Club. The silence stretched among them once again, but it was welcomed after everything that had happened. They all basked in the silence until the door opened, breaking the peaceful mood in the room as John Silver and Alex Reynolds walked in. Nick leaned back, his fingers interlocking behind his head as Matt pursed his lips, not liking where this was potentially going. Kenny and Brandon quietly appraised the two Dark Order members as they came in, Kenny’s hand trailing down to Emery’s back to gently rub soothing circles into it.

Her eyes were closed, but she gave a content sigh that Kenny could feel against his leg, sending a wave of happiness through his body.

“Brandon, you okay?” Reynolds asked as he extended his hand towards him, “We just wanted to come and check on ya.”

Matt appeared to be biting his cheek, his bottom lip sucked into his mouth as he refused to look at the Dark Order members as Nick occasionally threw out sarcastic ‘yeahs’ to the statements they made.

“Yeah, you- you had a big match. You did great. You were this close—this close but,” Silver said, holding his thumb and forefinger near each other, leaving a small gap. The slightly louder voices caused Emery to slowly stir from her tranquil state, but she didn’t move, instead just letting her eyes flutter open.

“We also had this BTE bit we wanted to discuss,” Reynold told Brandon, pointing over his shoulder as the two seemed to completely ignore the rest of the Elite in the room. Matt was visibly agitated but kept quiet, his hands in his lap clenching together—until now.

“Yeah yeah—it’s so convenient you two are here, right here and now,” Matt said, pointing to them standing there, “But where were ya last week when Hangman needed ya? The only person we saw go out last week—was Emery.”

Her head shifted in his lap, tilting slightly so she could see Reynolds and Silver better, but she kept it resting against Kenny’s thigh. She could hear the annoyance in Matt’s voice—and she had to agree with him.

Where HAD they been?

“Where were ya?” Nick echoed as Brandon took a bite of the cookie he had been in the middle of eating.

“We? We were—” Reynolds and Silver began talking at the same time, their answers overlapping, and Emery couldn’t completely focus on what they said. All she knew is that it sounded like an excuse to her.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure,” Matt said as he waved dismissively, leaning back in his chair as Nick leaned forward, glaring at Dark Order.

“Where were YOU guys?” Silver asked, staring directly at Matt.

Kenny was keeping quiet, one hand on Emery’s back while holding his phone in the other, browsing the internet.

“WE were at home,” Nick answered as Matt scoffed and Kenny looked up from his phone, “Nursing our injuries.”

“I had a beautiful day planned on the treadmill, going through physical therapy to get better and ring ready—and then I watch the show, and I tell myself, ‘HERE is where Dark Order comes in, Naturally,” Matt said, gesturing his hand forward like he’s watching a TV screen, “I mean, they’re supposed to be FRIENDS with Hangman, right?”

“Oh, we’re gonna talk about being friends, huh?” Reynolds questioned, his eyes flowing to all four of the guys but not to Emery before he looked back at Matt, “Friends with Hangman?”

“Yeah!” Matt nodded, anticipating the answer.

“Where were you guys the last TWO YEARS? Oh, that’s right—”

“That’s a call out,” Nick said, speaking over Reynolds, who ignored it and kept talking.

“—Oh, that’s right, making his life a living Hell.”

“Making his life a living. Hell.” Matt repeated, disbelief in his voice as Emery slowly raised her head

“Yeah—well, what great friends, though. Oh yeah, you guys are best friends—”

“Well, did YOU get him into Bullet Club like I did?!” Matt questioned him, leaning forward in his chair again, “Huh, huh, huh??”

“Where you guys his last birthday, huh?” Silver threw back at him.

Matt, Nick, Reynolds, and Silver all began talking over one another, and the words didn’t connect in Emery’s mind as she listened. Matt stood up as the agitation began to build, ready to verbally fight for his friendship. As he began to talk, Kenny finally spoke up for the first time.

“Woah woah woah, Hey!” Kenny said, taking his hand up off Emery’s back and holding it out towards Matt, Reynolds, and Silver as everyone looked over at him. The tone in his voice even caused Emery to finally pick her head up off of Kenny’s leg, her eyes peering at him curiously.

“No one--- no one here is fucking friends with Hangman,” Kenny continued, before looking at Dark Order, “You guys want him—you can have him.”

Emery felt like her heart stopped, his words sinking into her like poison. She didn’t want to believe that he had just said that—but deep in her soul, she knew he had. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Emery leaned backward, her weight balanced on her feet as she wordlessly stared at Kenny; Nick looked at Kenny incredulously as Matt shook his head in disbelief, then chose to ignore Kenny’s words.

“I like Hangman,” Matt looked at Reynolds before they began speaking over one another again. Nick stood up and walked closer, standing beside his brother as Kenny looked at Reynold and Silver, but any words he was going to say died on his tongue as Nick spoke. Emery began tuning them out completely as Kenny’s words echoed in her head, her eyes dropping to the floor.

“We’re better.”

They continued bickering between each other, how they were better friends, and Reynolds brought up a ‘Hangman on a pole match’ which the Bucks immediately dismissed due to Hangman hating heights. Winning the argument at the moment, the Bucks waved off Reynolds and Silver, who slowly exited the room, looking back over their shoulders. Nick and Matt finally sat back down as Kenny shook his head, looking at them.

“We done? Are we done?”

“We’re done,” Matt agreed, crossing his legs again as Nick leaned back in his chair. Both had seen Emery’s body language and couldn’t look at her; they knew she was stewing on what Kenny had said a bit ago.

“We don’t need to talk about that guy, okay?” Kenny told them, “We’re involved in something wayyy bigger right now, all right?”

Matt looked off in the opposite direction of Kenny, not wanting to really hear the words, but looked back when Kenny spoke to Brandon.

“I will say, Brandon, doesn’t matter how the match went. You got a moral victory- I’m proud of you. You stood up to those bullies. You didn’t take any crap from anybody, and you know what? That—THAT—makes you Elite. Proud of you—we’re all proud of you.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that so much, guys. This week was such an emotional week…”

“Yeah,” Kenny nodded, leaning back in his chair, “Glad it’s finally over—and we’re all back.”

“Uh, Ken?”

“Hmm?” Kenny asked, looking over at Matt, but it was Nick that spoke up—not even looking in Kenny’s direction.

“It might be over for Brandon, and maybe us… but uh—I think you have a new, uh… issue…” Nick’s voice lowered to almost a whisper on the last word, as Kenny looked at him confused, then over to Matt—who nodded his head towards Kenny. It took a moment of confusion, but realization dawned over him as he realized the error he had made. Slowly, he turned his head to look at Emery, finding her staring down at the floor, shoulders slumped.

“Look, Angel-face—” Kenny started, stopping short when Emery’s head snapped up to look him dead in the eyes. Tears were falling down her face, but her eyes were narrowed in anger.

“Take it back.”

Her voice was raw from the screaming she had done earlier, and the rollercoaster of emotions she was feeling didn’t stop her voice from cracking.

“Take. It. Back.”

Kenny sat there, turning his body slightly towards her as he rested one of his hands on a knee before shaking his head.

“No, I won’t, Emery. Look,” he said, trying to be considerate of her current state of mind, “You’re a little emotional right now, so—”

“Don’t. Even finish. That sentence,” Emery bit out; her chest started rising and falling quickly as she tried to fight back the anger that was resurfacing.

“Emery-“

“NO!” She yelled, wincing from the strain it caused, placing a hand on her throat.

Brandon, Matt, and Nick sat quietly—none of them want to suffer her wrath or get in between the two.

“I’m done—I’m done pretending that he doesn’t exist. That he wasn’t such a big part of our lives! You can deny it all you want, fine! I want my friend back, though—you realize how hard it’s been? Watching him from afar, never able to talk to him because I knew how you’d react--! I can’t--!”

The pain in her throat grew to be too much, and her voice died out completely. Emery pushed herself up off the ground, her legs a little unsteady, causing her to sway. Kenny reached out in concern, his hand gently wrapping around her arm. The second she felt his touch, Emery snatched her arm out of his embrace, glaring down at him before briskly walking out of the room. Kenny watched her leave, letting out a huff at her behavior before looking over at the Bucks in exasperation.

Matt refused to meet his gaze, staring at the floor for a second before getting up from his chair and exiting the room, choosing to follow after her.  Kenny looked to Nick, wide-eyed as he gestured towards the door as if we were surprised by what had just happened.

--Elsewhere—

Hangman sat on his bed, tablet in hand, as he watched the match between BCC, Brandon, and Nakazawa. When he saw Emery come out dressed as the Sinister Angel, he felt his heart skip a beat, worry pulsing through him. The Dark Angel was one thing—and even sometimes he didn’t like dealing with her—but this version? It chilled him to the spine. Hangman took the glasses off his face, folding them up and tossing them onto the bed, a beige bandage over the eye that Bryan had attacked with the screwdriver.

Hangman was highly aware of the extremes that Sinister was willing to go to, how dark and maniacal she could get—and against people like BCC, especially Moxley? That was a dangerous combination.

While she did indeed take the fight to them, getting several good shots in with a Kendo stick and chair—even claws—Hangman felt his entire body tense in anger as he watched them handcuff and tie her to the ring post.

As he watched, his tablet dinged, alerting him to a message. Clicking on it, Hangman saw it was from Alex —and after debating on answering, he swept it to the side and continued watching the video. Seeing Matt bring a screwdriver out, holding it to Kenny to use, brought a small smile to his face. When Kenny, unfortunately, missed Mox, Hangman looked away from the screen, frowning in agitation. His uncovered eye landed on the glasses, and as he reached for them, his tablet dinged again with another message. Just as he was about to swipe it away without looking, Hangman’s body froze in surprise as he read who the sender was.

“Ree….” He whispered, dropping the glasses back onto the bed as he leaned forward and clicked on the message. As he read the first, two more popped up after it, and then it was silent.

‘I—I’m sorry, Adam. I know you probably don’t want to hear it or don’t care and I wouldn’t blame you at all. I’ve been a terrible friend and let others dictate my actions and maybe I’m realizing this too late. Yuta made me very aware of my behavior… and Reynolds and Silver made a good point, we’ve done nothing but make your life hell since you and Ken lost the tag belts…. I just’

‘I’m not expecting this to fix anything between us and if you still want nothing to do with me going forward, I completely understand…. But I need to know that I at least tried—I’

‘I still care about you so much. I always have and I always will. You’re my Cowboy… the Hawkeye to my Cora… Butch to my Ella… If this is the last message I send you, please just know that…. That I love you. Please, take care of yourself.’

It took him several times of re-reading her messages before everything finally seemed to click in his mind. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Hangman tossed the pillow from his lap onto the bed and swung his legs over the side. Fingers hovered over the on-screen keyboard as he contemplated replying, not entirely sure if he should. His memories of years back, at the start of AEW, came flooding into his mind. It hadn’t taken long for things to go south, the heavy drinking, the voices in his head, Kenny leaving him—and taking Emery and the Bucks with him. Hangman spiraled deeper after that, and it had taken a long time and the persistence of the Dark Order before he rebounded back. Taking a deep breath, Hangman typed out a reply but hesitated once again as his finger floated over the send button. Then, listening to Evil Uno’s words, he followed his heart and not his head—pressing the send before he set the tablet down on his bedside table and got up and walked away, a smile finding its way onto his face. Maybe, just maybe, his life was starting to turn around.

‘I love you too darlin. Let’s meet up sometime, we can talk about everything. Figure shit out. Rest up. Looks like you might need it.’

[jaeger-bombastic-was-taken]

Probably not as severe as destroying your liver and stomach, but also avoid over-relying on paracetamol. Learned what a rebound headache was the hard way.

Last year I had a period of time where I was so stressed and tired I basically had stress headaches every day. I was so busy that my default response was to drink coffee and pop some paracetamol when it gets too much so I could keep going. Don't fucking do this. I took the pills too often for too long that, thanks to the rebound headaches, I basically had a permanent migraine that flares up whenever I'm not on paracetamol. You're not supposed to take them more than a few times a week, and not for multiple weeks.

The only way to fix that was to go cold turkey and endure the persistent headache for two whole weeks before it finally ebbed on its own. It was NOT fun. Nowadays, I try to weather it whenever I can, and try other methods to relax and make a headache more manageable before jumping on the painkillers.

Every time I see another ibuprofen post on this site I'm like STOP

STOP

Stop.

Take that after a meal. Take it with a big glass of water. Don't take it on an empty stomach EVER. Don't take it with alcohol. You will destroy your stomach. You will end up with an ulcer. You will vomit blood. I'm not exaggerating.

Yes, you. Yes, it will happen to cute little you. With your cute little bottle of miracles. Ibuprofen really does that to your body.

Love, an adult person over 35 who can't take NSAIDs anymore

[memorymessage]

AND I'M SICK

tested negative for covid. but it was a shitty at-home rapid test, so who truly knows. also negative rapid strep test, but i don't have the culture samples back for the strep test.

headaches, joint aches, heart pounding, fever, and throat is in the worst pain i have EVER felt in my life. like, i have been sick with the flu and cold a few times throughout my life, but this is by far the worst sore throat i have ever felt. i didn't even know it could get this bad. didn't even know it was an option.

mom has stocked me up: orange jay, MANY soups (so much soup, omg), throat coat tea, chloraseptic spray, and throat numbing lozenges. i sincerely regret not asking for flonase, because all i have on-hand is afrin, and i know that will only make things worse in the end by creating a rebound effect.

she also... got me a laptop? i was chatting the other day about how the new replacement charger for my laptop has grounding issues that cause feedback interference when using the trackpad and touch screen, and dell doesn't currently have any of their branded charges in stock. so she helped me try to find a non-knock off for awhile, which didn't work since the knock-offs look exactly like the actual charger. so she just ended with "well, i bought... something. let me know if it works."

and i was like "pls don't waste your money, i'm like 99% most of these chargers are knock-offs."

and then a whole ass laptop shows up the next day.

BRUH

i felt so bad, but i had to ask her to send it back, since my processor and graphics card are better in my laptop. i just- don't have a use for a new laptop that's not even better than my current.

so instead... she bought me a PHONE.

BRO???

genuinely don't know where/when to expect stuff like this. i mean, just last month i asked if my mom could buy me a package of pads (like $8) when she was going out to the store. she said no and told me to wear my period underwear (i only have 2). but i didn't press any further than that. i don't like to beg or ask for stuff or cause problems. i feel like i cause enough problems.

but then she'll randomly buy me stuff that i don't want/ask for? and now that i'm sick, she's buying me an overabundance of care products.

no idea. i get uncomfortable asking for stuff, but i get uncomfortable saying no to random gifts. i just don't get these weird...gift surges.

[euphoricdr3ams]

as trash as it is. its something very releasing to vent to the internet about my problems than to just write in journal where i basically just feels like I'm talking to myself...

I've been talking to myself so much in my head that i want basically need to share with the outside people. But thats a double edge sword because people are tired and exhausted and have their own shit going on. And if they do have the emotional capacity to deal with me. Its a slippery slope. Like how real can i really be with you. if i say this one thing will i make you upset about something you repressed too.

But I also can't be on a constant zoom call with my therapist either soooooo to the internet I come with all of my problems. :)

I think what im gonna do right now while under the influence is unpack at least one statement via written format that my friends have been screaming at me for months. that if it could just instantly process in my mind what would it be.

She said "I wish you understood that you deserve better than what you think. You are worthy. And i wish you appreciate yourself as much as i appreciate you"

I may have messed up that up but that was the gist of it. Sooooo that was really sweet and honestly lets just start here and maybe we'll come to a realization by the end of this post.

Its kinda telling my first reaction was how i feel like ive been slacking in the friend department and how i wanna just rush and be done with all of this so i can be the bright and bubbly person i knew myself to be.

"I wish you understood that you deserve better than what you think."

I kinda just at here and stared at this statement for about 3 mins. Well on first notice. When i try to repeat that to myself it sounds like nice and definitely some stuff i said to hundreds of people in my life. Permeant and passing guest in this story. But repeating that phrase back to myself just sounds phony.

Like what is so interesting about me that assumes i deserve better. Like at the end of the day, we're all humans so why should i live with this air of what i assume is arrogance that I am immune to the trails of this life and that I who has had such a leg up in this world. Deserve more than someone else who there's no competition has had it way worse. So to everyone else yes to me no. Honestly thats BS. I should give myself the same grace and space as i do everyone else but its like when i try to reach for the empathy string for myself its as if we've run out of thread.

Like if life was a game. Which it is. Then, how can someone who came in with at least plus 2 fuck up so bad. Like at this point. I would just be somewhat happy to finish. Cuz trying to make some sort of rebound or comeback from that sounds impossible so why even try to let that idea sink in your head. So at this point. Just finishing is a leg up. Cuz even that is alot. And its kinda like how dare you like waste the efforts of the people who helped you get to this point. Like its a long history. Your ancestors and the people in your life right now so how could you fuck up. Like you should have been really paying attention when people are sharing their stories. You would have saved yourself so much headache. soooooooooo why should i dream about better. I know im stuck in a toxic thinking trap with that last blurb but like this isn't no healed chronicles. We're basically starting from the beginning and maybe we'll reach some healed state by the end.

I guess since my thoughts are basically below the earth crust. It's hard to imagine better than where i'm at right now. I paused tbh. I let the same song loop twice before really type again. I think theres something below the earth crust and thats about how dark my thoughts are. XD

its not funny. but its also hilarious at the same time. Yea my perception of myself so down. I felt the most full as a person and as a human being when i had my ex. Like i felt like i was better and i could do better and that i was worthy. And its not like he was really all that. Honestly he was a piece of shit. If the two people i have on here actually made it down this far. They could write a 100 page paper on how trash he was and how he doesn't deserve anything good ever again. But that level of anger i cant find it there for him fullly. Most of that resent is back at me for not smacking the dog shit out of him and leaving. He even suggested i do it. and i couldn't. I really loved that man and the thought of doing that even after all that is so bad. I wouldn't forgive myself. I wanna be able to do that but its not there cuz i dont deserve it. ughhh. Like all i can really feel is sorrow that i couldn't be all that he needed and thinking i failed him.

Im really pathetic.

I'm kinda really happy that i'm so lit right now cuz i would be having a whole meltdown.

Like the thought is that, at least he wanted to stay for a while. Most ppl just take an immediately leave. They dont even ask so i should be grateful.

Honestly I think thats part of the reason Why i was so happy regardless of the situation. Also doesn't help I have this song on loop. It about the listener be happy to die right now because they already found their person so they've already peaked. Its like a love song out of desperation instead of confirmation that the other person feels the same.

if i would have died during that relationship i would have said i went out happy. This was how i felt before all the fuckery started. I was so happy with my love and just him that i could have been just happy. He never was. He wanted more as he sucked all of that in the moment happiness i had and turned it into just a depressing mess. Turned it into someone who has so much anxious energy its ridiculous.

Out of the 2323232323233232323232232323232 *many* people i have had sex with at least he wanted to be here :) for a bit until he basically just lied about everything and took off his facade. Then i was tossed out like the trash. its coool i find a way to recover. Even if i have to just :). My way out of this. It's worked a bit up to this point. Why would it not work now...... right? I'm fine. I have no choice but to be.

I was gonna finish this but I'mma need a minute. Maybe that was ambitious of me. I feel a bit panic-y and dizzy so imma just chill for now. Till next time i guess

[quietpagan]

Whose Child Is This?

In which fourteen-year-old Harry Potter sees his time-travelling five-year-old self accidentally appear in the middle of the fucking Great Hall, asks ‘is anybody going to adopt this kid?’, and does not wait for an answer.

AO3

---------------------------------------------------------------

The Great Hall was, in the aftermath of the rather exciting First Task, quite louder than usual. The visiting schools had been thrilled at the display, and while Hogwarts students were somewhat accustomed to having a weirdly stimulated school year, dragons had not yet been a part of the entertainment (for most).

The Hall was also brighter than usual, even excluding the Wreasley twin’s occasional breakfast-time antics, with the flashing of the very original and creative ‘Potter Stinks’ badges that everyone loved. Potter himself wasn’t wearing one, if only because he couldn’t figure out how to get it to stay stuck on the ‘Support Cedric Diggory’ setting, but it didn’t matter. Flashing badge or no, after such a rousing scene during his tussle with his chosen dragon Harry was as much a topic of craned-neck looks and too-loud whispers as the rest of the Champions. Even if you hated the kid, most people had to admit that anything ‘Potter’ tended to be interesting, honestly.

But yet absolutely none of it compared to the three carelessly-cast spells that had just rebounded onto Harry Potter; the bright, wobbly circle of light that temporarily blinded everybody near the ends of the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables; and the extremely tiny boy that had just fallen through it.

Harry Potter was a skinny, speccy teenager with a few bandaged burns and bruises and an increasing headache, and he was also the itty-bitty five-year-old groaning from where he’d landed in the mashed potato tureen, bleeding all over the tablecloth.

The Hall went silent, after a perfunctory scream or two.

The little boy lay in place for a moment and then turned over, sitting up as best he could. There was an enormous t-shirt hanging off one shoulder that was slowly becoming speckled with dark stains, and it was difficult to determine his expression under the myriad of bruises across his face. One thousand magical students watched as he swiveled his head back and forth, taking in the entire Hall with a rather myopic squint.

“Is this Heaven,” he asked the bushy-haired girl in front of him.

Hermione Granger knew exactly everything except how to answer that question.

The ginger boy next to her was running marathons with his eyes, trying to look at Hermione, the little boy, and his utterly shellshocked friend sitting across from him all at the same time.

“Er…”

“If it’s Heaven then that’s alright,” the child continued, still squinting. “Only I hope the angels are nice.”

Harry Potter the Elder was frozen in place, listening to the child speak. His back was throbbing from whatever spells had just hit him and so was his head and so was everything, honestly, dragon-fighting sucked. This was unreal. This could not, absolutely could not be happening.

Hermione seemed to gather herself then, after an unsuccessful effort to get Harry to react.

“Oh, um. Well, I’m not an angel but my, my name is Hermione. And – and – what’s yours?” She asked, visibly stiffening at a flurry of movement from the high table.

“Boy.”

Across from her, behind the child, Harry Potter’s face completely drained of blood. He didn’t move an inch, as if hoping that if he didn’t make a sound, the disaster happening on top of the table wouldn’t see him.

The child shook his hair out of his eyes, and the sweat-damp strands parted over the angry scar beneath them.

Across the Hall, Draco Malfoy looked as if he were trying quite desperately to telepathically make his father hear of this. Rita Skeeter, damn her to hell, was absolutely going to hearing of this.

“Um, it’s not Heaven, I’m terribly sorry, but – did you know that you’re bleeding? We really ought to get you to the hospital wing, Ronald, grab my bag, what on Earth happened to you?”

The boy watched as the redheaded teenager struggled to fit two schoolbags over one shoulder while simultaneously attempting to kick the black-hair kid across from him in the shins.

“Uncle Vernon was very mad at me.”

Harry Potter unfroze in a swoop of black robes, grabbing the tiny child and hauling him off of the table. The boy shrieked in pain before hastily covering his mouth and Harry belatedly took his hand off the kid’s back, instead crouching to pick him up from the front. There really wasn’t an extremely dramatic change in size in ten years and it wasn’t that difficult; the boy weighed hardly anything. Shouts emerged from the high table as he swung his legs over the bench and booked it for the door.

“Mr. Potter! Mr. Potter, come back here – “

Harry, Ron, and Hermione legged it out the Hall, shoving the door shut behind them; Hermione took an extra moment to do a complicated little spell that she’d been using to keep secret her personal diary, since her roommates had a nasty habit of believing that anything that held possibly juicy gossip was theirs by default.

She caught up to the boys with difficulty, since Harry, even when weighed down by a two-stone kid, was stupid fast.

The boy unceremoniously slung over his shoulder watched the corridor go by with pained bemusement, occasionally waving to a straggling student who was late for lunch.

The door to the hospital wing loomed wide as Harry rushed right past it, scrambling up a staircase to the exclamations of his friends.

“Harry-“

He turned a corner and booked it to the grand staircase, thundering up the next flight two at a time.

“Harry, please! You need to take him back to the hospital wing!”

“Look at him, mate, he’s bleeding all over!”

“It’ll be fine,” Harry finally said, not pausing even as his arms and legs burned like fire under the exertion. “He’ll heal okay.”

“You can’t just know that - !”

Harry could, because he remembered this day. Harry had once asked very, very foolishly, why he was called ‘Boy’ at home and ‘Harry’ at school, and if his relatives had known his name was actually ‘Harry’.

Vernon beat him so hard he’d thought he was dying. It was the first time he’d ever used the belt, and Harry had spent the afternoon and the whole night in his cupboard praying, wishing that the angels would be nicer to him if he went to Heaven.

He remembered dreaming of a great, big room full of floating lights and black-clothed people, he remembered watching a woman speak, though he couldn’t understand her. Nobody had picked him up and ran off with him then; he’d fallen asleep, or passed out, or something, and when he woke up he was sore and stiff and achy, but alive, in the furthest place from heaven that his five-year-old mind could think of.

It wasn’t happening again. He couldn’t let it. The kid just looked so small.

The seventh-floor corridor flew past until the trio halted in front of a rather hideous tapestry, and Harry began to pace.

I need some place to hide a kid.

I need somewhere to keep a kid safe.

I need somewhere to hide a kid.

He reached for the doorknob before it even materialized and fell through with his friends on his heels, slamming the door behind him.

“Harry, what – ?”

“How did you know this was here, what is this, mate?”

“I asked Dobby if he knew of a place to get away,” Harry muttered, conveniently solving a problem that the author didn’t want to dig into. 

No one in, he ordered. Steel bars emerged from the wooden door and embedded themselves in the stone around it. The room was small and dark, lit by a tiny fireplace that made soft light dance across the ceiling. Harry set the kid down on a plush sofa, pushing him a little when he tried to get away.

“Mm’not – “

“You’re allowed on the furniture,” Harry whispered, bent over him so that Ron and Hermione wouldn’t hear. Hermione looked like she had anyway.

A table appeared by the couch just as he was thinking of healing supplies, sporting bandages and rags, bowls of water, and a rather dusty bottle of murtlap essence.

Now that the running away was done Harry honestly felt rather empty. He didn’t want to do this with his friends watching, he truly didn’t, but he needed to think and he just couldn’t think right now, so his friends would have to reach for him.

“Er. Would you guys mind, I mean. Turning around? Please?”

Ron swiveled instantly, while Hermione looked like she wanted to argue. But at Harry’s insistent look she sighed and turned, leaning on the back of the couch beside Ron.

The kid was looking at him with wide eyes, bright green. Harry had never noticed how vivid they really were.

He wished he could think of something nice, but all he could think of in his moment was how accurate ‘green as a fresh-pickled toad’ actually had been.

“You look like me,” the kid said. Harry took a deep breath and held it for a moment.

Nodding, he grabbed a rag and the bowl of water.

“I want to get your back fixed up. Can you get your shirt off?”

Kid looked like he wanted to say more –

- ‘Don’t ask questions, you little freak’, Petunia would shriek –

But he set about pulling his arms out of the sleeves. Harry helped him get it over his head and scooted around to sit on the couch.

Harry had honestly never really seen anybody else extremely injured, or at least, not in a truly messy way. Quirrell turning to dust had happened rather quickly; they had knocked Snape out last year, but only a thin trickle of blood was evident there. The other Champions after the First Task had a few small cuts and bruises but that was it. Harry had had multiple grotesque, bloody injuries, and although they’d hurt like shite the sight of them didn’t really do much to him.

It was different, seeing it on somebody else.

The t-shirt had smeared the blood around rather gruesomely but the welts were worse than the cuts. Most of the blood was clogged and sticky; Harry wrung out the rag and gently tried to wash it away. The more he got off the worse the bruising looked; thick, dark lines welling up adjacent to the raised welts. The water in the bowl was reddish in no time, and he used the second bowl to finish up cleaning.

It would probably have been easier, he thought, if he could work on a smooth surface, but everything about the kid’s back was craggy; spine poking out like a mountain range, ribs showing more than could ever be healthy, the crests of his hipbones showing over the top of an overlarge pair of underpants held up with an old hair tie. Harry didn’t remember looking this nastily thin but he knew it was accurate, it was just…different. Seeing it on somebody else.

The same person. Somebody else who was the same person that he just snatched out of time and oh shit, he couldn’t take care of a kid!

“Sirius!”

Ron and Hermione jumped, spinning around reflexively. Harry tried to hold the t-shirt up like a curtain but it didn’t work one-handed.

“Oh, Harry – “

“We need to write to Sirius,” Harry said firmly, doing his best to ignore how watery Ron’s eyes were looking and, oh, god, it was all falling apart, he could not fucking handle this.

“Mate, I know he’s cool and all but the man’s living in a cave eating rats.”

“He offered to take me last year. SO. He probably had a house or something in mind, right? Just. Can you just write him really quickly, please?”

“Harry, we really should be going to Professor Dumbledore with this, shouldn’t we? He’ll be able to figure all of…this out, surely.”

Harry’s hands gripped the t-shirt tighter. Something in his throat squeezed shut, and he had to fight to open it again.

“Dumbledore will send him back. He’ll say it’s for our own protection and maybe he’ll talk to the Dursleys and he’ll promise that this won’t happen again and I’m not doing that, he, I. We’ll figure this out without Dumbledore, so please, please can you just go and write Sirius?”

Hermione had already given up on not crying but she nodded and wiped her face, shoving Ron across the room to the door, which opened just barely long enough to allow them through.

Harry turned back to the task at hand, dabbing at the cuts with a little bit of paste. The kid was starting to shiver. Harry gently pushed him forward just as the fire enlarged a little.

“Sirius is our – he’s my – he’s, shit.”

There were two Harry Potters, why was this his life.

“He’s our godfather,” Harry said, answering a question he knew had to be running around the kid’s head. “He was supposed to take us when our parents died but he was framed for murder and put in jail. He broke out of jail last year. I don’t know how he can help but he’d better have something.”

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That something turned out to be giving both Harrys a heart attack by showing up at the door fifty minutes later, scrambling at the wood like a bear trying to break into a storehouse. Small Harry jumped onto the arm of the couch as only-slightly-taller Harry opened the door for the enormous dog, who bounded in and changed into a man in one smooth motion, grabbing the older Harry in a bone-crushing hug as the door slammed shut.

The hug must have been too tight, because Harry suddenly was having a really, really hard time keeping from crying. Hugs from Sirius felt as safe and homey and achy as Mrs. Weasley’s embraces, but there was an element of mine that was added as well that kind of crushed something in his heart.

When Sirius let go he didn’t let go all the way; his hands stayed on Harry’s shoulders as he peered over his godson’s hair to look at…his? Other?? Godson??

Who was still standing upright on the couch, utterly agog at seeing a dog turn into a man. 

Sirius took in the bloodied kid, the scarred forehead, the glaring ribcage, and the cringing teen all in one wide glance, and stepped forward and knelt, bringing him just below the kid’s height.

“So you must be young Harry Potter,” he said softly, giving the child a gentle smile. The boy shook his head, looking up at his counterpart with wide eyes.

“S’m’name’s Boy,” he mumbled. Sirius’s face told Harry that they were definitely going to be having A Discussion sometime soon, but he just cracked a smile and pulled a blanket over the kid’s skinny shoulders.

“Well, my name is Sirius, and I’m actually your godfather, so I’m going to be taking care of you now, alright?”

The boy – Harry, his name is HARRY, it’s HARRY, it’s not Boy, it’s not Freak, it’s HARRY – clenched the blanket in his little fists.

“What’s – “

“You got your dad’s cloak with you?” Harry, who hadn’t until the author needed him to, nodded.

“Good. Toss it over the kid and let’s go. I’m taking you to my house.”

Harry scrambled to fish his cloak out of his pocket while Sirius shoved the Room’s medical supplies into his own pockets, grabbing another blanket and tucking it securely around Harry-the-younger and picking him up. The boy looked terrified but didn’t say a word.

“We need to get to either your Common Room or McGonagall’s office,” Sirius said, waving his wand at his face and murmuring urgently. “Is there a mirror – ah.” At Harry’s thought, a claw-footed mirror appeared on the wall. Sirius trudged over and continued to spell his face, until he looked like a passable copy of Professor McGonagall.

“Can’t do much for the robes, I’m afraid, but it’ll do if we have to run for it. Sorry, Minne,” Sirius added in afterthought.

Harry walked them over to the door and thought very hard about Professor McGonagall’s office, which portraits and tapestries hung near it, what the hallway looked from the staircase at the end. The Room shuddered, and then the door shivered a bit and opened to look directly at McGonagall’s door.

Harry and Sirius shimmied out and nearly brained themselves on the wood when the door refused to open.

“Shit! I mean, shite.”

Sirius kicked the wood and started off to the stairs that led to Gryffindor Tower.

“She’s not in, I left the door jammed but she must have seen it, dammit.”

Harry trotted to keep up, listening to the horribly-accented mutters with pounding in his ears. Surely, surely somebody would notice them, they were going to get caught and this would be the end and –

“Mr…oh! Mr. Potter, stop right there!” The both of them whirled around to find Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, and the actual Professor McGonagall turning the opposite corner. McGonagall looked a bit stunned for a moment, before indignation overtook her face and she marched right at them, proper robes and hat and all, like a tartan tiger having spotted its prey.

“Harry!”

“Mate!” “Sirius - ?”

“Book it.” “Black, don’t you dare – “

Sirius and Harry bolted up the stairs, screeching to a halt at the portrait before Harry gave the password and ducked through the entrance, startling a gaggle of second-years who were just stepping in.

“Muffliato!”

The few students hanging out in the Common Room immediately looked confused at the sudden buzzing in their ears, as Sirius dug a hand into the pocket of his robe and tossed an amount of floo powder into the fireplace.

Harry was suddenly burdened with thirty pounds of invisible child.

“You go through first, Harry,” Sirius said, as muffled yells echoed from outside the portrait hole. “It’s ‘Grimmauld Place,’ alright? Hurry.”

“Grimmauld Place, Grimmauld Place,” Harry muttered, remembering his last floo encounter. He stepped into the emerald flames just as the back of the portrait rocked. A few of the students around the Common Room began to look panicked and suspicious, realizing that ‘Professor McGonagall’ was looking somewhat different than usual.

Harry adjusted the kid, feeling him breathing quietly but quite heavily, and shouted “Grimmauld Place!” just as the portrait hole burst open.

The flames whisked him away before he saw more than Dumbledore’s wide eyes, and he and the kid tumbled out into a pitch-dark room.

There was a moment of alarm as he overbalanced and began to fall, then a strong hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him upright.

Sirius’s angular face was illuminated briefly by the flames, before he put a hand onto the lintel and said, “Nullus Introitus!” and the fire died immediately. The darkness fell with the ringing of iron bells, and despite the silence Harry’s labored breathing sounded strangely muffled. The hand on his shoulder was warm, though, and he held the kid tighter as his eyes began to adjust to the dark.

“Where are we?” he whispered. The darkness absorbed the sound like a sponge.

“We’re at my house,” Sirius murmured. His hand shifted on Harry’s shoulder as he moved forward, and suddenly there was light; with a gesture, Sirius had lit the wall sconces.

“Don’t move from that spot,” he said, “And don’t lose contact with me. This house isn’t very friendly, and I, uh. I haven’t been here for a while.”

The room they were in was coated in dust, but the green silk of the wallpaper was still able to be seen, and the sharp, lavish décor was no less harsh for its layers of neglect.

It wasn’t anything like Harry had seen before, and Sirius’s trepidation did nothing to assuage his nerves. But as the invisibly kid began to squirm, Harry-the-elder found himself enveloped in a pair of long, warm arms, the scratch of a beard tickling the top of his ear.

“We’re going to figure this out, Harry,” said Sirius, and finally the strings were cut. Harry sagged against his godfather’s chest and took a shaky breath, trying to control the burning in his eyes. A hand rubbed across his back, and if he had to wipe his eyes against Sirius’s velvet housecoat then nobody else was here to see it.

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A/N: Where did this come from? Why did I write this? Who fucking knows. I haven’t read the books since I was in high school so please forget inconsistencies in timeline and tidbits here and there. We’re taking 'fuck the source' as a writing style because fuck JKR. This wouldn't leave me alone until it was written so here it is. If there’s fourth wall breaks unusual to my writing style it’s because I’m mad.

Is there another Horcrux now that baby!Harry is present? Who fucking knows! Not me! This will not, not, NOT be continued upon, by golly!

I originally wrote this as happening in 5th year, mainly because that’s where the Angst ™ is and I kind of thought it would be hilarious to have Dumbledore just chilling at Grimmauld Place after he ditches Hogwarts in book five, like…where did he go? Boarding at the Hog’s Head with Aberforth just to annoy his brother? I feel like he would be an extremely pleasant and polite and tidy houseguest that absolutely every host wants to get rid of within half a day of his residence. Dumbledore can be stomached in small doses, not weeks living in the same house. And I want Sirius to get a little petty about it.

BUT Book Four has a lot more, uh, options. Of stuff. It’s past midnight, I don’t have a brain right now.

Also the books just kind of…sleep? On Harry’s horrendously abusive home life? Like it’s literally just there. I get that that’s kind of how it can feel at the time but uhhh that shit makes marks in weird and unexpected places. I know not much was actually touched upon but it’s canon that Harry’s been both choked and hit at with frying pans, and Vernon even smacks Dudley as well in the first book.

Anyway I’ve never read a fic of younger Harry time-travelling to the future, always book- or future-Harry travelling to the past, so here you go, bite me.